France and England (1811)

C H A P T E R X I

France and England

[ I811 ]

HE Packet, a British vessel, did not leave Boston harbor until the eleventh of January, 1811. Besides Adoniram she carried only two passengers, a couple of Spanish merchants. With England and France at war, and the United States on the verge of war with both, passenger travel was light.

For some days the voyage was uneventful. Then one morning the sails of a strange craft loomed over the horizon. They belonged to a French privateer with the awe-inspiring name of L’In'vincible Napole’on. The Packet was a fair prize.

The officers, passengers and crew of the Packet were carried on board L’Invincible Napole’on. The two Spanish merchants, who spoke French and were obviously men of substance, were well treated and given a cabin. Adoniram was not so fortunate. French was not one of the languages he knew, and his unimpressive black clothing did not suggest to French naval officers that he was anyone of importance. Along with the crew of the Packet he was unceremoniously thrust down into the hold of the Frenchman. The hold was dark, dirty and overcrowded. Presently a typical January storm blew up and the men below became seasick, Adoniram among them. In a short time the hold became a revolting mess.

This was one experience for which Adoniram had not been prepared. His cleanliness and dislike for dirt were almost obsessive. He had never known anything but kindness, or at least a decent respect for his person. Now he wallowed in filth and received the same harsh treatment as the rest of the Packer’s crew. In all his worst dreams of missionary life he had never conceived of anything as repulsive and degrading as this. The ship’s doctor visited the hold every day. Adoniram tried to make his plight known to him, but without French he gOt nowhere.

Dismally, he began to think of home—of Nancy, of Bradford, of his family in Plymouth, even of Dr. Griffin’s rejected offer of a post in the Park Street Church in Boston. He had turned his back on all of them. Now, between homesickness and seasickness, he began to wonder whether he had chosen the right vocation after all.

At the very depth of his despair, however, a new thought came to him. Perhaps God was giving him a foretaste of missionary life to test his faith and determination. Supporting himself on his knees as well as he could in the pitching hold, he prayed for strength to withstand his weakness. After a while he felt a little better, and fumbled around in the dark until he could lay hands upon his Hebrew Bible. When he had it, he found a place where a faint light fell, enough to read by, and began to amuse himself by translating the Hebrew into Latin.

One day while he was thus busy translating, the ship’s doctor came upon him during his rounds. The doctor picked up the Bible curiously, and examined it in the better light near the gangway. An educated man, he recognized it, and, returning to Adoniram, asked him a question in Latin. Latin turned out to be an effective means of communication. Mentally thanking his stars, we may suppose, that he had once been called “Old Virgil Dug Up,” Adoniram explained who he was and why he had been aboard the Packet. With quick sympathy for the young divine, who was obviously of his class, though so different from a French curé, the doctor arranged for Adoniram to be removed from the hold at once. Before sundown he was assigned a berth in a cabin, and thenceforth he took his meals at the captain’s table with the officers and the two Spanish businessmen.

With the run of the ship and facilities for keeping clean, Adoniram found the rest of the voyage pleasanter. From the deck he witnessed one momentarily exciting event, when L’In'vz'ncz'ble Napoléon was sighted by a bigger and better-gunned British brig. But the French vessel was a faster sailer, and any hopes Adoniram had of getting to England by a second capture were disappointed.

Eventually the privateer touched at Le Passage in Spain, where she landed the two Spaniards.

But Adoniram, educated man or not, was carried to Bayonne and herded to prison at gunpoint with the crew of the Packet.

By now Adoniram’s spirits had rebounded to their usual vigorous level. On the march to prison he vented his indignation with shouts in his few words of French to crowds lining the streets. His complaints merely convulsed the onlookers with laughter. It occurred to him that some of them might understand English, and undaunted he began a violent diatribe “against oppression and this one act in particular.”

The power of Adoniram’s voice had been famous in Andover, and his outburst in English disturbed the guards. They tried to stop him with threatening gestures, but he noticed that no one actually struck him and raised his voice even higher, to the increasing hilarity of the crowd. But a moment later, a voice called from the crowd in a familiar American accent: “Lower your voice!” Adoniram obeyed at once. “I was only clamoring for a listener,” he explained, and in a few hasty words told how he came to be where he was.

The voice belonged to a Philadelphian — an officer of one of the many American ships trying to pierce the English blockade — who promised to try to help him. “But you better go quietly now,” he cautioned. “Like a lamb,” promised Adoniram, “now that I’ve got what I wanted.”

The prison was an improvement over the ship’s hold mainly in that it did not pitch or roll. The prisoners were confined in a huge, dark, underground dungeon, damp and chilly, lighted dimly by a single feeble lamp hung from a central stone column. The beds consisted of piles of straw strewn on the floor along the walls.

When they were safely immured in this vast communal cell, Adoniram began impatiently pacing up and down, waiting for his rescuer. After some hours the cell door grated open and the Philadelphian, shrouded in an immense military cloak, was admitted by the jailer. Adoniram had been leaning against the central pillar when his friend entered. Now, avoiding any appearance of impatience and without giving any sign of recognition, he moved directly underneath the lamp.

Ignoring Adoniram, the American walked over to the pillar and lifted the lamp from its bracket, saying, “Let me see if I know any of these fellows.” Lamp in hand, he walked away from Adoniram, inspeCting each of the men who lay huddled in their piles of straw.

When he had gone once around the room, he pretended to give up in disgust. “No, no friend of mine,” he muttered, and returned the lamp to its bracket over Adonirami’s head. In the same movement, he swung his cloak around Adoniram.

Crouched under the cloak, half-blinded by its enveloping yards of fabric, Adoniram crept to the cell door on his companion’s heels, doing his best to keep in step. The Philadelphian was an extremely tall man, the ‘cloak as voluminous as a tent, and the room dim. Even so, however, the most unobservant turnkey could hardly have failed to notice that the Visitor not only had become much bulkier but had acquired two extra legs.

But the American knew the magic needed for making extra legs invisible. As the cell door swung open, he slipped some money into the jailer’s waiting palm. He gave more to the guard who opened the outside gate of the prison. Thus, the Philadelphian striding ahead, Adoniram hunched behind under the cloak, they passed beyond the walls of the prison. Outside, the Philadelphian swept the cloak off Adoniram’s shoulder, commanded brusquely, “Now, run!” and led him at a full gallop to the wharf, where he concealed him aboard an American ship. The next night Adoniram spent in the attic of a shipbuilder. A few days later, he was provided with parole papers, and from then on was free to walk at large.

He found a boarding place with an American woman who had spent most of her life in France. Here he stayed for six weeks. She knew he was a minister, but he concealed his occupation from others, “as he thought it would interfere with a plan he had of learning as much as possible of the real state of French society” —which sounds remarkably similar to his earlier passing as “Mr. Johnson” in New York.

As a layman he “attended various places of amusement with his fellow boarders, pleading his ignorance of the language and cuStoms of the country as an excuse for acting the Spectator merely; and in general giving such evasive replies as enabled him to act his part without attracting undue attention.”

“Places of amusement” was a polite understatement. Bayonne, like Marseilles, teemed with the ragtag and bobtail of a Europe convulsed by a generation of revolution and war. The diversions available for visiting mariners were an open secret, and tales about the entertainment provided for American shipmasters were WhiSpered behind discreet palms for generations by their descendants.

Finally, however, revulsion overcame his curiosity. “The last place of amusement he visited was a masked ball; and here his strong feelings quite overcame his caution, and he burst forth in his real character. He declared to his somewhat startled companions that he did not believe the infernal regions could furnish more complete specimens of depravity than he there beheld.”

He did not stop here, but went on —in English—to enumerate “many of the evils which infidelity had brought upon France and upon the world, and then showed the only way of escape from these evils—the deSpised, but truly ennobling religion of Jesus Christ.” Carried away, he Spoke louder and louder until he attracted a good-sized audience. Most of the guests, not understanding his language, thought his performance was part of the show. But a fair number, though their faces were concealed by masks, showed by their behavior that they understood, and were stung as he voiced his disgust at the behavior of men who were undoubtedly Americans in disguise.

Shortly afterwards, Adoniram left Bayonne for Paris—according to one account, in a military carriage with some of the officers of Napoleon’s suite. In Paris he spent some time with them before finally receiving a safe-conduct for England, and is said to have visited with them places similar to those he had seen in Bayonne. True or not, his involuntary stay in Bayonne certainly opened his eyes to a kind of existence scarcely dreamed of in sedate New England. He considered the experience invaluable for a missionary, and all the rest of his life “regarded his detention in France as a very important, and, indeed, necessary part of his preparation for the duties which afterwards devolved upon him.”

Important or not, the French episode was irrelevant to his real purpose. It was May when he finally arrived in England, four months after sailing from Boston, and called on the directors of the London Missionary Society. It was a good time to seek decisions. The annual meeting of the society was about to begin. He was able to attend it knowing that he could receive prompt answers to his requests.

The directors had already received Dr. Worcester’s letter on behalf of the Board’s Prudential Committee. Now they read Adoniram’s letter of instructions and other documents he brought, and immediately delegated a committee to explore the matter more thoroughly and report to them without delay.

Under the kindly but realistic questioning of this committee, Adoniram realized what a weak proposal the Board had given him. As the English committee said: “Mr. Judson is able to offer very little encouragement as to pecuniary assistance. The zeal for missionary effort seems to have been excited chiefly, if not entirely, among those who have only their personal services to offer.” With even reasonable prospects of raising money at home, he would never have been sent to England. Yet his elders in the United States had instructed him to learn whether “you and your brethren can be supported in missionary service for any time by the London funds, without committing yourself wholly and finally to the direction of the London society; or whether it may be in any case consistent for the mission to be supported partly by them and partly by us; and if so, under whose direction it must be held.” Behind these words, it was obvious that the Americans were asking for joint control of a mission without offering joint support. Joint control, the Londoners knew, was impracticable from opposite sides of the Atlantic; without the inducement of joint support, the mere suggestion was ridiculous.

The motive of the Americans was plain —— at leaSt, it must have seemed so to Adoniram. He was learning in London that the London society was planning to Spend ten thousand pounds on missions during the coming year. It had a generation of experience in its field. His own superiors had been unable to raise even his passage money to England; they had no experience at all. Yet now they had the effrontery to ask to share without contributing. His hot temper must have flared when he thought of the humiliating position in which he had been placed. What was the American missionary movement? It was himself, and a handful of students in Andover. What had the American Board done? t i n g but stand in the way of his original idea of a year ago of offering his own services to the London Missionary Society. Thus he must have reasoned.

Under these circumstances, Adoniram felt absolved of any obligations to the American Board and promptly offered himself to the London society. He also offered Newell, Nott and Hall —with only two stipulations. He asked that all four be kept together and used in forming a new mission station. And, thinking of Nancy and knowing that the other three had come to believe it would be best to marry before going abroad, he asked that the new missionaries be permitted to take their wives. About the matter of wives, the members of the committee were dubious, but finally agreed. As to the whole group forming one station, there was more doubt. In View of the well-known antagonism of the East India Company to missionaries, the committee felt it would be best for two to go to one station and two to another. But even here the door was not closed completely. Accordingly, the committee recommended to the directors that the four “be accepted as missionaries, to be employed by this society in India.”

The arrangement was conditional, of course. Newell, Nott and Hall might not agree to it. Or the American Board might suddenly find funds. In fact, word had just come that Mrs. Norris, who with her husband had helped finance Adoniram’s passage, had died and left a large sum of money for missions.

Thus, thought Adoniram triumphantly to himself, whether it came about one way or another, the accomplishment of the first foreign mission by Americans was assured. And this was what he had come for.

His main business accomplished, he spent the rest of his time in England visiting the missionary seminary in Gosport, where he learned all he could from its leader, the aged and experienced Dr. Bogue. Occasionally he took part in church services here and there, and “his voice surprised those who saw his slight frame.” In one of the London churches, where he read a hymn, the minister remarked to the congregation, after explaining that the young man was to be a missionary: “And if his faith is proportioned to his voice, he will drive the devil from all India!”

Altogether, Adoniram spent six weeks in England. On the eighteenth of June he went on board the ship Augustus at Gravesend, and on August seventh sailed into New York Harbor. He had been away from home a little more than eight months, but he was sure that the news he brought was worth it.